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Description

The overall problem that we are trying to solve is being able to rapidly deploy a system of automated movement.

An example mission of this would be for use in natural disaster settings during the humanitarian efforts. The robot modules would be unpacked from a backpack, then configured and linked together to perform a task. Tasks can vary depending on the scenario, such as sorting supplies to go to a specific area, or even digging out areas to let standing water flow away from shelter locations. By having the robots help with tasks the effort is in parallel with the human, freeing up time for the human to do complex decision making jobs.

The first step towards working on the problem is to create one of the robot modules. This project is about the RDAS Drive module.

Details

How it works

The robot is unfolded from its transportation cube shape. The green pieces will eventually be solar panels to harvest some energy. The sides with the wheels touch down and move the robot. The distance sensor in front detects and obstacles and avoids them.

Tele-operational control from the human is possible with a hands-free wearable headband with haptic feedback. The headband tracks the movements of the human's head and moves the robot accordingly.

Problem

Continuing from the description above, these robots are meant to be able to do tasks in parallel with the human. This way they can focus on more complex jobs.

Being able to achieve the level of parallelization is a key part to the problem; the robots won’t be very helpful if they have to be controlled all the time. They have to be able to do their task as autonomously as possible and when there is human input they have to understand what is trying to be communicated.

The goal of this is to eventually get the robots out in the field helping. It will take a long time with a lot of failures to get to that point. It’s all with another moonshot in mind: if the robots will be good enough for Earth, then what is stopping us from making them good enough for other planets as well. The robots could be tasked with starting to build structures on Mars, or go exploring, try to grow a plant (challenging in difficult environments).

Developers

Another one of the goals of RDAS is to have groups developing on it, so that the robots could be deployed locally if there is a scenario where the robots can help. The experience could then be shared globally and go to all of the other labs working with RDAS, to improve an action plan for how the robots can be used to help in various scenarios.

Milestones

There are a few milestones to hit before getting RDAS into people’s hands:

Generic RDAS Chassis Design

The first of which would be to create a generic RDAS chassis, based off of the CubeSat dimensions. The work done here with making RDAS Drive module is helpful towards going to this milestone.

Field Testing

The ultimate tests will be to see how well the robot modules perform outdoors, in the real environment. It has to be able to work! Trying, failing, fixing things, will be the way this milestone is accomplished.

Weather Balloon Payload

Here is a goal along the horizon that I am racing to try to meet. That is evaluating the performance of the robot as used in a weather balloon payload. This would introduce it to different temperatures and conditions, as well as test how the robot can function at a high altitude.

Project Logs

Designing with Antimony for use with custom skeleton-physics simulation

Learn how to design parametric models in Antimony to make your prototyping process faster by spending less time tinkering your design with each iteration. Create complex geometric sculptures in Antimony with scripts. We will then dive into selecting key points on the geometry for use in a custom-made skeleton based physics simulation. This is helpful if you are using new materials for fabrication and need to develop your own way to simulate how it will behave under certain forces.

If you have not heard of Antimony yet, check it out! It's developed by Matt Keeter. During Fab Academy 2015 all of us students used it a lot- I became addicted to it! =)

Working on the details this weekend- will post with updates! Hope to see you there!

If you were following this project throughout the Hackaday Prize, and maybe before that with Fab Academy, you might have noticed that there were not so many updates once September rolled around. Read on for the details!

Mini field test showing how RDAS v0.5 can move some debris on the shores of this beach! What a rush it was to see the bot working in action out in the field (and it was raining a bit too)! Check out the video

Great to have the ducks there while I was testing the bot. It definitely gave a broader scope to why I'm trying to make these robots.

*Note: This was recorded around September 10. The development of the prototype has advanced since then.

In the video showing the latest prototype of RDAS (v0.4), you might have wondered why I had to hold down the sides of the robot for it to move. Especially when it's supposed to be hands free -- it just seems contradictory! Time to investigate further.

Here's a video I made showing the latest version of RDAS. Check it out:

It was nice to take the robot out in the field.

One of the things you might notice in the vid is that I have to push down on the sides of the robot so it can move. The reason why is because the extension piece that the motors are attached to tends to flex, so when the motors are trying to push onto the ground, it ends up flexing. This means that the wheels don't have good contact.

In the next revision I'll be evaluating if making the extension piece stronger will help. If it doesn't, I'll add a similar locking mechanism to a folding table. It would extend from the inner structure to the motor panels.

There are also new diagrams up in the project details. These give a clearer overview of my idea. Please check them out if you have time!